Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and Interior Minister Anupong Paochind have to listen to the student protestors, an opposition MP said on Thursday.
Teeratchai Panthumas, a Move Forward Party MP, opened the parliamentary session on Thursday by saying that the people who should really be listening to the protestors are Prayut, Prawit and Anupong, whose nickname is Pok.
For the past two days, parliament has been hearing results from a house committee chaired by Bhumjaithai Party MP, Paradorn Pritsananuntakul, which was set up to listen to the grievances of the protestors.
Teeratchai collectively called them by the nickname “Three Ps” which was given to them when they orchestrated a coup to overthrow the previous elected government in 2014.
“They have to really listen and not just turn a deaf ear towards it,” he said to parliament.
“They have never been here to listen to it personally in the past… and if the Three Ps are sincere then they would have,” he added.
The current administration is facing pressure from protestors as they rally against the Prayut administration’s harassment of dissidents, its legitimacy to rule, various injustices that occurred under its governance, and repeated mismanagements which led to the current economic downturn.
More than 10,000 people came to protest against the current prime minister and his government on August 16, the biggest since the coup. Another mass rally is scheduled for September 19.
Prakorb Rattanapun, an MP from the Democrat Party, also said that representatives of the student protestors should be invited to parliament to address their grievances and demands.
